Investors Fear More Than Just a 'Fiscal Cliff'

The Dow plunged 313 points yesterday, but don’t believe news media reports that it was the nearness of the “fiscal cliff” that caused the selloff. What spooked investors is a bigger picture that recognizes the economically catastrophic implications of a second Obama term. To be clear, there is nothing Romney could have done to avoid the deflationary Depression that lies ahead. However, a Romney presidency might have at least served as a reality check on malfeasant fiscal practices, delaying the onslaught of hard times for perhaps long enough to allow Americans to put their financial houses in better order before austerity is imposed on us with the force of an earthquake, as it has been on Europe.

We’re not going to dwell on the choice Americans made on Tuesday. Suffice it to say, the election has substantiated conservatives’ worst fear – that, sooner or later, Big Government’s clients would come to outnumber those of us who pay for the criminal extravagances of their voracious welfare state. Actually, it turns out they needn’t have outnumbered us, since the quirks of the electoral college have enabled them to execute a coup even though they lacked a statistically significant majority.

Bread and Circuses

Now, with a $16+ trillion federal deficit that is growing by more than a trillion dollars per year, the nation’s descent toward insolvency can only accelerate, further widening the gap between tax revenues and outlays. Soaking the rich, even by taxing them at 100%, would not begin to arrest the decline, but just try to tell that to those who voted for Obama. Bread and circuses will be their reward, and far be it from us to predict that they will feel unsatisfied. Rather, the opposite should hold true, since it will not have cost the 47% a dime.

As far as the stock market is concerned, we were quite surprised to find some bullish opportunities in the dozen or so charts reviewed in real time during a “Hidden Pivot Analysis” session held Wednesday morning at Rick’s Picks. Amazon, Priceline and Facebook, among others, look promising, suggesting these companies, and presumably a few others, may be able to buck a depressionary tide, perhaps by focusing on nickel-and-dime sources of revenue. If you’re interested in the details, as well as the reasons for our bearish outlook on the broad averages, a recording of the session is publicly available.

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I've yet to figure out why anyone of a libertarian bent would see Romney as being any better than Obama. I've seen no hint that he would have done anything to undo the erosion of liberty since 9/11. Worse he would have rushed us headlong into more needless war, hardly a way to balance the budget. He would have worked on imposing Sharia law by another name. War on porn, and anything else fun that religious nuts don't like.

We need someone who stands for liberty, but given the choise of only two evils, sad to say Obama is the lesser.

On the good side the ballot initiatives show a clear pro liberty swing in America. Pot legalization, not because the majority want to smoke pot, but because they believe the government should stay out of peoples personal business. Lets see more of this. Even if the president is the choice of lesser evils. Initiatives to take government out of where it doesn't belong. Reigning in over zealous code enforcement for example. The only questions a permit should ask "Will this kill anyone? Will this interfere with anyone elses liberty?".

Such pseudo-intellectual BULLSHIT.....the Soviets have been taking over the U.S. for 50++ years. You can't blog it away and the gun owners don't have enough balls to use their weapons. Just get ready for the camps and prisons.....its coming soon.

I used to think people should get out their pitchforks and torches, and charge! But in my ongoing search for the truth, I realized violence is wrong unless it becomes absolutely necessary to use it in self-defence. I want to make it clear, I do believe a person has the right to peacefully protest, which I myself have done on numerous occasions.

But I will not use a gun or any other weapon of any kind in order to initiate the use of force. However, if you enter my den of gold and silver uninvited with bad and violent intentions, regardless of whether or not you're wearing some 'badge', you will find what you are seeking... a gun, along with some balls.

The object is to relieve you of your wealth without the burden of having to pay anything in return. They have already given you the MSM through the glass teat to redirect your confused anger. Camps and prisons cost money..

When have Republicans ever been fiscally responsible politicians, who don't continuously kiss the asses of Wall St and the financial elites? Were you alive when Ike was the president? Sure "a Romney presidency might have at least served as a reality check on malfeasant fiscal practices, delaying the onslaught of hard times for perhaps long enough to allow Americans to put their financial houses in better order before austerity is imposed on us'.

But probably not. Not with a policy that called for huge tax cuts to the wealthy, like you. Noit with an increase in military spending. And the American people were right to be wary of a politician who can't show his tax returns or provide details of which loopholes he'll try to close.

And when the Dow regains the territory it lost yesterday, it will only be due to Fed manipulation, because the President is only responsible for the fucking selloffs now.

"And the American people were right to be wary of a politician who can't show his tax returns..."

I suppose you're saying, "If one is innocent, why not just show the proof? If one is not willing to show the proof, they must be trying to hide something that they are guilty of." Right?

Why the double-standard MrBoompi? Why are the American people NOT right to be wary of a politician who can't show his original, official birth certificate? I'm not a birther, but I think the standard is correct: if one is innocent, and has nothing to hide, they can show the proof, and silence their critics once and for all. Why the double standard? It would have been so easy to just show the proof, instead of making the lame excuse that it was beneath him to even respond to such an extreme fringe group of critics.

Right, and a GOP Congress (House & Senate) during the last years of the Clinton administration didn't balance the budget over the objections of Democrats including that of Clinton who eventually took credit for it... Down the memory hole we go...weeeeee

Were you alive when Ike was president? I was. If you were, did you develop amnesia about the late 1990s, when Newt Gingrich and the Republican congress dragged Slick Willie, kicking and screaming, toward a balanced budget? Indeed, for a few years, Republicans were fiscally responsible. Then came the compassionate non-conservative, George W. Bush, to lead them into fiscal irresponsibility. If Reupblicans have been less than stellar on fiscal matters, what would you call the Democrats?

This response infuriates me yet is so common on ZH. What does GOP past history have to do with our current descent into catastrophe? It's as if someone made a mistake and from then on no matter what happened, every response was, "You once screwed up so anything you do or say can be dismissed."

I say, anyone who fights against this disastrous course has my support regardless of past mistakes. And how can forking over 30-37% of your income (not counting state, city, sales, SS, etc) be a "giveaway". It's true - we have destroyed the aspiration character of our nation with political blather about the evils of wealth. The more things change...

He's from seattle. he blew his brains out on pot years ago. can't blame him. it's society's fault. the public schools taught him that all republicans are bad, all democrats are good, he isn't responsible for anything, it's every rich guys fault, the government will take care of his money, retirement, rent, car, phone, et al... critical thought has been destroyed. it was a roadblock to the takeover. it has been replaced with daily brainwashing from the ministers of propaganda.

I've spent enough time around potheads to fully grasp the following fact: while they seem normal, fun-loving, and intelligent, they have huge blind spots in their ability to accurately assess reality, or respond in a timely fashion to changes in reality. They spend a lot of time in denial.

The plan was simple and it is working. In 2008 the bad bets within BigFinance had to be paid. Either the corporations who made the bad bets could take the losses/haircuts or the losses could be transferred via bailouts to the Governments/Taxpayers.

The choice was made to transfer the losses to Governments and Taxpayers.

Now Governments are broke due to bailing out BigFinance and again there are two choices. Either Governments can impose austerity and cut social safety nets to taxpayers and sell off public assets to pay BigFinance or they can default on debts.

So far all Governments are choosing Austerity and selling off public treasures to BigFinance.

What a racket. BigFinance wins again!!! Now their bad assets will be replaced with valuable ones.

And Barack Obama wasn't the lawyer for ACORN suing Citibank to make so called diversity loans to people who couldn't afford mortgage payments... Barney Frank and Chuck Schumer didn't oppose the reforms of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac so that their buddies Rahm Emanuel and Franklin Raines could make millions in bonuses from buying subprime mortgages and selling them to investors. And Barack Obama as Senator didn't vote against said reforms in one of the very few times he didn't vote PRESENT.

You call this essay BS. Perhaps you're right.. But it is curious that your attributing our financial situation to Big Finance sucking money out of the taxpayers coincides, somewhat, with Ackerman's assessment (or my superficial understanding thereof) that the market is rigged to suck money out of the little investors and funnel it to...Big Finance. Maybe you and Ackerman are both correct in general, aside from his suggestion that Facebook may be a good investment going forward.

balls and more balls; the situation on the US fiscal front was healthy when Clinton gave the keys of the WH to GWB in Jan 2001.

What transpired since then was an accceleration of the financial mayhem of the private sector oligarchy construct bequeathed to the world by the Reagan-Thatcher deregulated supply side Oligarchy FIRE economy. The scam gravy train started then...

To blame the rape of the AMerican and world economies on State side READJUSTMENTS made NOW, to right the malfeasance of that oligarchy raping, is like saying FDR was responsuble for the 1929 crash. Those fiscal deficits skyrising are a result of socialising private debts on a HUGE scale and you know it. Pure crony sleight of hand.

Enuff said, this is hocus-pocus reasoning that is bitter grapes of oligarchy wrath at the expense of the people's cause.

You and your kind built this cookoo's nest; now own up or shut up. Facts never bend to revisionist theory.

I loved recent political spots featuring Clintoon asking voters if they could trust someone who lied to them. He was supposed to be attacking Romney, of course, but both Clintoon, himself, and Obama belong on the incredibly long list of politicians who have lied to the electorate.

As stated above it is not one president who did it, but a whole number of logical steps that fell into place along the path dictated by the Oligarchy of whom Alan Greenspan and the Squid were the top spokesmen and financial hand maidens.

Reaganomics....never forget that word...its the bible of this current construct.

With the exception of the WW 2 generation, which is diminishing rapdly, we have not lived through a major catastophic economic event lasting more than 1 or 2 years. As a result, most urban dwellers have been taken care of by charities or the state(s.)

There is little understanding of the kind of poverty that the rest of the world has suffered through for long periods of time since WW2. The most common belief among most of us is that while we have our problems, the government will muddle through or take care of it for us. This is the primary reason that things that require immediate attention seldom get the focus we need.

The day this belief that all is OK, stops being so for the majority of Americans, will be the day that hell is unleashed on the majority of the population. Are we as a country equiped to handle it?

Amazon just agreed to pay sales tax to the State of California. For many CA purchasers, the state-wide base rate plus local additions will total to 10%. That is a hefty cost disadvantage, and I think Amazon is going to get hurt more than they expect by that.

Ya know, Zimbabwa's stock market fucking EXPLODED during the beginning of their rise to hyper-inflationary fame. Who knows what these jack offs will do? A few 'fat fingers' and they could suck billions from the wealth of the real economy until the hyper inflated rise to greatness.

You fail to understand that the government is actually not in debt, unless it wants to be. In other words, all Congress has to do is pass a law that repudiates all government debt, or invalidates the dollar, replacing it with the "new dollar". Therefore, all old dollar debts and money is null and void.

There will, of course, be "special clauses" for those dollar holders that are politically connected, or deemed "too big to fail", who will then be "specially compensated" with "allowed collateral", meaning the properties that the Federal Reserve, Fannie and Freddie have on their books as MBS "vehicles", which will then be taken from their rightful owners and be given to the special interests, to "compensate" them for their "special services".

If you're not on the list buddy, you're not getting in. This law will be the second one that passes. The first one will be a "special emergency powers act", which will last until cancelled.

Uh huh. If you don't count cascading bankruptcies throughout the world economy, 80% U.S. unemployment, and Civil War. I'm afraid the International Rothschild Bank, aka the Fed - currently holding about 4 trillion of US debt - is not interested in your elegant solution. "Whatcha gonna do?" M1A, full magazine, discharged into the face of the first ZOG-enforcer at the door.

Steve - U watch 2 much network TV. Spot oil price has NOTHING to do with the gas pump prices. Big Oil has contracts at much lower prices as well as their own oil wells and processing. Do your homework.